The Dhoom That Came to Rio

Bollywood sequels are fairly rare, and when you do see one it’s usually a situation like Krrish; the characters from the previous movie are killed off offscreen, so that their identical children can have new adventures with new love interests. Dhoom: 2 is unusual, because it features the same characters doing the same sorts of things, only on a bigger scale.

Ali (Uday Chopra) is now a police officer, but he’s still the same goofy sidekick as ever, more concerned with finding food and a wife than with any sort of police work. Ali’s partner Jai (Abhishek Bachchan) and his wife Sweety (Rimi Sen) are expecting their first child, which gives Sweety the opportunity to be even more of a cliched nagging wife. Ali and Sweety tease Jai about not being able to attract a woman even if he wanted to cheat (he doesn’t) and that’s when Jai’s curvy college friend and now fellow police officer Sonali (Bipashu Basu) arrives to brief him on his new assignment.

This time around, they’ve been assigned to catch the mysterious Mister A (Hrithik Roshan), an international cat burglar and master of disguise armed with an array of high tech gadgets that would make James Bond weep with envy. Jai suddenly realizes that there’s a pattern to Mister A’s crimes, and that the next robbery will be in Mumbai. (And if they didn’t already know that, why were they briefing the Mumbai police?) Jai, Ali, and Sonali set out to foil the robery and capture Mister A, and, of course, they fail dismally.

On his way out of town, Mister A catches a bit of a newscast which claims that Mister A has announced another theft. He’s intrigued, and decides to catch the impostor in the act, even as the police scramble to catch him again. The impostor turns out to be Sunehri (Aishwarya Rai), an aspiring thief who wants to learn from the best. A is reluctant, but after a dance number, he agrees to take her on as an apprentice, and they head for Rio. Jai and Ali follow; Sonali was incapacitated by a sprained wrist during the second heist, so she remains in Mumbai, but while in Rio Jai and Ali will be staying with her identical twin sister Monali (also Bipashu Basu).

The character dynamics in Dhoom: 2 are largely the same as in Dhoom. Ali is still a goofy sidekick who contributes nothing of substance to the actual investigation, and Jai is still a stylish thug who isn’t above blackmailing random criminals into undertaking dangerous missions. The film is also nearly as testosterone centric as its predecessor, with Sweety losing the “sexy wife” aspect of her character and becoming entirely comic relief; her relationship with Jai is once more eclipsed by his relationship with Ali, and the boys even have a “relationship talk” to work out their issues. While Sonali is a tough, independent lady cop, by the interval she’s been replaced by her air-headed, beach dwelling party girl twin. The sole exception is Sunehri, who has an actual character arc, making her the most fully realized character in the Dhoom franchise.

In the end, Dhoom: 2 is basically the same movie as Dhoom, only more so. The action scenes are bigger and more improbable. The heroes travel to Rio rather than Goa. The “villain” is a suave international super thief rather than a disgruntled pizza delivery boy. The difference is that the sequel seems to be more comfortable with its dumbness; nobody bothers to pretend that the leads are particularly smart or the plot is particularly clever. It’s just empty-headed fun.